ENDGAME

[kentucky_mcgiygas]

[A wall panel in the green room slides out of view, revealing an elevator. Get in it and it will take you down to the hotel (description here), where your fellow contestants - alive and ghostly - await.

You may spend as long as you want here, ordering up as much room service as you like, but when you're read to go home, you'll find that one floor (new to the current hotel occupants) has nothing but doors with your names on them. Exit, and you'll show up exactly where you were when you left.]

((THANK YOU FOR PLAYING EVERYONE. Ghosts, feel free to materialize and talk to people. You may now speak about your prizes.))

Comments

[rowboats]

Yes. I get to go home and see my parents and Garry again, and Mary is coming with me.

[ .... ]

I had nightmares when I was stuck in the gallery, and I was only there for a day or two. I don't know what kind of nightmares I'm going to have, now.

[ how does one even move on from a murdergame jesus lord ]

[jinglebros]

Mary's coming with you? I thought she was dead.

[ Pauses and he kneels in front of her. ]

Ib, can you promise me something? I know I have no right to ask for something, but it's for your own good.

[rowboats]

She was a part of my prize, so they brought her back. They had to keep their promise.

[ she frowns ]

I'll listen.

[ but no guarantees she's willing to heed it ]

[jinglebros]

Tell your parents. Make sure they get you therapy. Don't let it sit, don't let it hurt you, don't let it dawdle.

Take care of yourself, take care of Mary, and don't let it hurt more than it has to.

Okay?

[rowboats]

No one's going to believe us.

[ her frown deepens ]

Not after what happened at the gallery, and extra not after what happened here.

[jinglebros]

[ He sighs and rubs his forehead. ] Then we need to figure out how to get an adult to go with you, because I am not leaving you to suffer alone.

[rowboats]

...I can try to talk to Garry, but I don't know what he'll think.

[ because garry you are her big bro and she loves you but you have only been through one level of murderhell, not two ]

[jinglebros]

Talk to him.

You need to talk to someone.

[rowboats]

[ .............. ]

Okay.

[ He was afraid of the gallery, too, but he was also an adult. He did his best to look out for her and Mary. A killer game show wasn't too unbelievable after a killer art gallery, was it? ]

...can I talk to you? [ a pause ] About the gallery. I didn't want to talk about it the first couple of days, but I feel a little better about it, I guess. Now that I know I don't have to go back there.

[ plus he spilled his own awful backstory to her, fair is fair ]

[jinglebros]

You can tell me anything you want to, Ib. I'm here to listen.

[ He sits where he kneels, because that's more comfortable and easier on his tired, injured body. ]

[rowboats]

[ She lowers herself down, too, flatting out her skirt and sitting primly. ]

My mother and father took me to a show at an art gallery. They had a bunch of paintings and sculptures by this old artist called Guertena. It was really neat, at first. I like to draw. I like art, so I was excited.

Mother said it was okay to go look at some of the paintings by myself. So I walked around for a little bit, until I saw this really big painting. A mu...mural? [ did she say that right ] It was really weird and blurry, and it looked just like the gallery. There was the front desk, and people walking around, and a few of the sculptures from the front.

...when I turned around, everyone was gone, and the lights went out.

[jinglebros]

....

[ Santa doesn't think that part of the story bodes very well. ]

What happened next?

[rowboats]

I went to look for mother and father. But...no one was there. Nobody. I tried to leave, but the front door was locked, and all the windows were foggy, even though it wasn't that dark out before. I looked at the weird painting again, but there were these...letters on the floor. And someone painted on the wall. "Come down below, Ib, I'll show you someplace secret."

I got scared. I started walking around, trying to find a way out--but one of the bigger paintings of a mean-looking fish that lives at the bottom of the ocean, one that had to be put on the floor, had ropes around it so that no one could step on it. When I found it, the ropes were gone, and there were footprints leading into it.

So...I stepped into it. It was like walking into the water at the beach.

[jinglebros]

...I'd ask why you stepped into it, but I would have too.

[ He's just glad that curiosity clearly did not kill the cat. ]

[rowboats]

There was nowhere else to go. I wasn't strong enough to kick down the door or break the windows.

[ her shoulders droop ]

[jinglebros]

What happened inside the painting, Ib?

Was it scary?

[rowboats]

[ very briefly shoots him a look like WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK, OF COURSE IT WAS

but then she continues. ]

It looked kind of like the gallery, but the walls were blue. I found a rose sitting in a vase of water, so I picked it up. There was another door, but it was locked, so I looked for a key...when I took it, there was more writing on the walls. Thief. Give it back.

The stairs I walked down from the fish painting were gone, so I kept walking.

...the other room wasn't any better. There hands that poked out from the wall and tried to grab me with their claws, and when I found another key, a mannequin with no head chased me. The talking ant on the floor was nice to me, though.

[ is Santa starting to see why she thinks no one will believe her when she tells her story, now ]

I had to keep solving puzzles. That part was kind of fun, but only because I had to think so much I couldn't sit there and be scared. A painting played hide and seek with me until it helped me make a key shaped like a fish, and gave it to a wall shaped like a kitty's head.

...it meowed at me. I liked the kitty wall.

[jinglebros]

Was the rose your rose?

[ He listens other than that questions, and nods along. He can understand why she'd think nobody would believe her. He barely believes it, except for everything he's seen and heard here. He'll give her the benefit of the doubt. ]

I'd like the kitty wall, too.

[rowboats]

[ A nod. ]

If I put it in water, the petals it lost would grow back. But it was hard finding vases.

[ She clenches her fists, arms trembling a little bit. ]

More puzzles, I had to keep solving puzzles...I went into this room called the Liar's Room, where every painting except one told me lies. I found the clue I needed, b-but...when I left I heard banging and ripping. I went back in and th...they killed her. The other paintings tore her up and killed her just for telling the truth! There was paint everywhere and it looked like blood.

[jinglebros]

What the fuck?

[ Santa's eyes widen. ]

That's horrible!

[rowboats]

I didn't want to be there any more, so I ran out, but I had to look through these...dolls hanging from the ceiling by their feet.

[ She grips her skirt hard, knuckles turning white. ]

I went down another hallway that had paintings of...those head-choppy things that are used to kill people. When I went down the stairs one almost...f-fell on me, it cut off a little bit of my hair as I was running. It was so heavy it left cracks in the floor.

[ ... ]

I had to grab another key from one of the Ladies in Red. Guertena painted them because a lot of ladies tried to marry him for his money, so they're really greedy and want to take everything from you. One of them took Garry's rose from him, and left him on the floor. That's where I found him. He was hurt so badly he couldn't move.

[jinglebros]

Garry's your friend?

[ Santa is breathing a little too rapidly because of this story, but trying to keep his cool because it's not the adult's job to freak out around the child okay. He offers his good arm to her in case she needs a hug or something because of all this. ]

[rowboats]

That's him. I miss him a lot...

[ She takes a deep breath, and continues. ]

I went to go get his rose back. One of the Ladies had taken it into another room and was pulling all the petals off, in He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. [ And Santa should know that...pretty much means death. ] I got it from her but since she couldn't open the door, she...b-broke the window and crawled through it, and chased me down the hallway.

[ She shakes her head, more to reassure herself than anything. Chasing, why was there so much chasing? ]

I found a vase for his rose and he was able to get up, so we talked for a bit. He was stuck there too. He went to go see the gallery, and was all alone and couldn't leave. So we walked together for a long time, and he read me the names of the paintings that I couldn't say. He's kind of a scaredy cat...there was a painting that was just of a big tongue, and when it tried to slobber all over him, he screamed and jumped away. [ which was kind of funny, evidenced by her slight smile

It fades as she goes on. ]

But--then we got to a really big room with a bunch of hallways and locked doors. I felt better then, because I had someone with me, but the more and more puzzles we solved in that room, the more paintings would jump off the wall and come after us. The mannequins started chasing us too, and when we went into a room and came back there were c-ceramic heads everywhere, looking right at us.

One of the doors led to a room where there...was a painting of my mother and father. [ Her voice gets faster, more desperate. ] I didn't want to stay in there, with their picture, but the door was locked. W-We heard pounding. They knew we were in there and they were coming to get us. They cracked a hole in the wall and started coming in, surrounding us, and I've never been so scared in my life, I thought I was going to fall down and it would all be over, and they could claw at me and rip me up until there wasn't anything left...!

[jinglebros]

[ Santa stares at her, his spine tense and feeling nervous shivers. He's not sure what to say and so he doesn't say anything. He does reach out and pat her back a few times, hoping that helps her with a gentle gesture - but he's not sure what else he's supposed to do here. ]

[rowboats]

[ If anything, she just seems content that he's listening. This is really the first time she's talked about what happened in that long, long room. She didn't even tell Mary. ]

...but we found the right door. [ quietly, in more of a squeak than a whisper ] I remember walking in, and Garry locking the door behind us, and then...I fell over and went to sleep.

I had a nightmare. I had nightmares about that room even here, and I wake up, and Mary's sleeping next to me and no one's chasing me.

[ ........ ]

I woke up this tiny room with a bunch of books....he kept me safe. He made sure nothing came to get me while I was asleep, and gave me his coat because the floor was hard.

[ So, you know, real bummer when some of the adults in the game turned out to be assholes because her lone experience with adults in a tense situation was "gain extra big brother." ]